Shortly after nine o’clock on the morning of June 24th, a woman in her forties, whom I’ll call Luisa, arrived for her appointment at an abortion clinic in Texas. Inside the waiting room, a space bedecked with posters of women rendered in white, red, and blue, she filled out a series of mandated forms, and was escorted to the back of the facility, where dozens of other patients waited. A single mother of three who moved to the U.S. several years ago, Luisa had visited the clinic the previous day to get a sonogram, which revealed that she was less than six weeks pregnant, the legal limit to have an abortion in Texas at the time. Per state law, however, she needed to wait at least twenty-four hours before the procedure could take place.

Minutes after Luisa’s arrival, the Supreme Court issued its ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. Few of the patients knew that the Justices had the authority to take away women’s right to abortion. But when the […]